Supporting the Growth and Impact of the Chemistry-Education-Research Community

Chemistry-education research (CER) has progressed considerably in the United States since emerging as a discipline in the 1970s. Although CER graduate programs have become well established at a few universities, their success and growth may not be assured. Even with an increasing number of chemistry departments across the United States employing one or more CER faculty, CER can still be a novel entity to many traditional chemists. CER faculty continue to face the challenge of educating colleagues and students about CER scholarship. To start conversations about how we as a community can begin to address some of these challenges, a group of CER faculty representing a variety of backgrounds and experiences were brought together for a symposium at the 2018 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education. Most talks at the symposium were given by copresenters who had not previously worked together but had experience within the given topic. This commentary is an extension of that symposium in which the presenters use their combined experiences in considering how undergraduate research, postdoctoral positions, mentoring, collaboration, and networking can enhance the growth and recognition of CER. In framing this commentary, we pose two questions to the CER community: (1) How do we strategically grow the CER community, considering the multiple pathways by which people enter CER? (2) What can be done to make CER a more widely accepted and recognizable discipline?